We’re delighted to announce all of our fragrance oils are now phthalate free. After hearing concerns from customers, we decided to reformulate around 300 scents. It took 4 years and hundreds of tests to ensure the fragrances still smell great and perform well in cold process soap. Learn more about the process below.
What are phthalates
Phthalates are a group of chemicals used in products like toys, detergents, nail polish, and hair spray. They’re used to make products more flexible and harder to break.
They’re added to fragrance oils for a few reasons. Certain aroma chemicals come in powder form, so a phthalate like diethylphthalate (DEP) is used to convert them into a liquid. That helps the fragrance blend better and burn more easily in candles. DEP is also a fixative, which makes scent last longer in perfume, soap, and lotion. Learn more about how fragrances are made in this post.
Why did we remove them
We started getting emails, calls, and social media comments from customers about phthalates. They were concerned about potential health effects and wanted to know if we could remove them. Because it’s important to our customers, we decided to reformulate all our fragrance oils.
To learn more about phthalates, check out this article by the FDA and this one by the CDC.
The reformulation process
The first step was generating a list of all our fragrances with phthalates, then contacting the vendors about reformulating them. Once we got the reformulations, we had to test them. Bramble Berry Research and Development Manager Caitlin said we did hundreds of tests to get the fragrances just right.
We wanted to make sure the reformulations smelled the same as the originals and that they stayed strong in cold process soap after 6 weeks of curing. Because DEP is a fixative, removing it sometimes caused the scents to fade.
“The vendors resubmitted the same fragrances 3-4 times on some of them,” Caitlin said.
Once she had test bars she was happy with, Caitlin had everyone in the office smell them a few different times over a few different days. Scent is a complex thing. If 2 bars are exactly the same but you smell them back to back, the second one won’t smell as strong. Caitlin also made sure not to share her opinion of the reformulation, as that can affect the results. If you say, “This soap smells like chocolate,” and hand it to a friend, they’re more likely to pick up the chocolate notes based on your suggestion.
Once everyone smelled the test bars at least 3 separate times and they were happy with the results, we brought the fragrances in. The project took about 4 years because of the complexity and number of fragrances. Cold Water was the last reformulation.
“I was so excited to send the email about Cold Water being phthalate free,” Caitlin said. “It was a good feeling.”
Find all our phthalate-free fragrance oils here. They can be used in handmade soap, lotion, bath bombs, and more.
Are the Fragrance Oils also 100% natural?
The fragrance oils are synthetic. If you want a natural scent I would recommend Essential Oils.
EOs: https://www.brambleberry.com/shop-by-product/ingredients/essential-oils
I have a surplus of fragrances that were purchased late last year (November) do they all contain phthalates?
Hi Jess, I believe the only one that did contain phthalates late last year was the Cold Water, but if you wanted to email [email protected] with the fragrances that you are concerned about we can double check for you.
Do you courier to India,Mumbai.
Yes, we do ship to India. To get a shipping quote, add items to your shopping cart and enter your postal information into the shipping calculator on the bottom of the My Cart page. Please know, there will most likely be duties / customs imposed by your government on your order.
Here is the link to our International Shipping Policies page:
http://www.brambleberry.com/International-Shipping-Policies-W31.aspx
Can your fragrance oils be used and are safe to use in candles?
All of our fragrance oils are safe to use in candles, but the ones with the ‘Candle and Soap’ tag in the title perform the best. You can find those here: https://www.brambleberry.com/Search.aspx?k=candle+and+soap
This is so amazing! Do you possibly know if any of the fragrances are also Paraben and Sulfate free? A lot of my customers are very concerned with that as well as Phthalates and I would love the option of more scent options!
All of our fragrance oils are paraben, phthalate, and sulfate-free.
What was DEP replaced with?
It depends on the fragrance formulation. The specific fragrance oil ingredients are Trade Secrets and vendors don’t normally give out that information. In some cases the DEP was just left out and not replaced.
Thank you so much for all the time and work you put into switching to phthalate free fragrances. This makes me feel so much better using fos. They smell so nice and make the soap so much fun.
What was the last fragrance out? Just curious!
The last fragrance to contain phthalates was Cold Water: https://www.brambleberry.com/Cold-Water-Fragrance-Oil-P3898.aspx
I bought a sampler of your fragrance oils 6 months ago. How do I know if the ones I have are phthalate free?
As long as none of your fragrances in that sampler were Cold Water, then none of your sample fragrances contain phthalates.
That is fantastic news. Will your labels state Phthalate free. I am in Australia and I know a few companies that sell your fragrance oils. I just want to ensure I am purchasing phthalate free products.
We don’t have any plans to mention phthalate-free on our labels, but the company you purchase from should be able to verify whether or not what you purchased contains phthalates.
What an impressive undertaking!
Love that you have taken this step!!!
Yall are an amazing company!!!! Amazing customer service! Thanks